Austin Sigg attorneys question DNA evidence in Jessica Ridgeway case

By Karen AugéThe Denver Post

Posted:
05/03/2013 08:33:29 AM MDT

FILE -- A student sits outside of the courtroom while visiting for a civics class before the hearing for Austin Sigg at the Jefferson County Courthouse on March 12, 2013. (AAron Ontiveroz, The Denver Post)

Austin Sigg, who turned 18 in jail, is charged with 18 counts related to Jessica's death, as well as an attack on a jogger at Ketner Lake last Memorial Day weekend.

Four of the counts carry mandatory life sentences.

He and his attorneys appeared in a Jefferson County courtroom Friday for a hearing on motions.

The Colorado Bureau of Investigation issued three "contamination memos" regarding DNA testing in the Ridgeway and jogger cases. A CBI analyst explained the process of DNA testing and analysis.

He pleaded not guilty last month, over objections of his attorneys, who said they needed more time to consider a plea. At that same hearing last month, Judge Stephen Munsinger set a Sept. 20 start date for Sigg's trial, which is expected to last three weeks.

Jessica was kidnapped on her way to school Oct. 5, 2012. Part of her body was found five days later in a field in Arvada.

At a preliminary hearing in February, Westminster police Detective Albert Stutson testified that Sigg told him over the phone, " 'I murdered Jessica Ridgeway. I have proof that I did it. You should send a squad car down here. I'll answer all the questions. I won't resist.' "

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During Stutson's testimony, prosecutors played a tape of the phone call Sigg's mother, Mindy Sigg, made to police Oct. 23.

"My son wants to turn himself in for the Jessica Ridgeway murder. He just confessed to killing her," Mindy Sigg was heard saying.

When the dispatcher asked her what her son had told her, Mindy Sigg replied, "That he did it, and he gave me details."

The dispatcher told her she was doing the right thing, and she replied, "He did it. He's turning himself in."

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